Title: Soul Serene
Rating: R
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Zombie Cantos
Characters/Pairing: Team – mostly gen, but slight M/P
Genre: Horror/Drama
Summary: Sometimes building the future comes at a cost. Sometimes, things happen for no reason at all.
Warnings: This chapter will contain *character death*
Zombie Cantos: Soul Serene
* * *
If I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go,--
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It make the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!
If I Should Die – Emily Dickinson
*
Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.
Horace
* * *
Twenty-four months after the Zombie Apocalypse
The fire flickers in the night, sparks jumping through the darkness. Silence hangs dead in the air. It's late, and most people are sleeping, save for the team.
The Team. Capital T. Will always be the Team, even though there's no FBI anymore. No BAU. They don't even really work together as much as they used to, but they still can't let go of the one thing that ties them together.
Jack and Henry are there too – Jack plays with a stick in the fire under his father's watchful eye, and Henry's fallen asleep in his mother's lap. Reid wraps his arms a little tighter up against Jean, and she pushes against his chest. Garcia and Kevin are so intertwined in each other that it's hard to tell whose limbs are whose.
No words are spoken.
'Hey, Dad?' Jack's voice cuts through the silence. 'Can I come with you tomorrow?'
Hotch hesitates. For a long time, he had resisted on letting his son out of his sight, but recently, their supply runs have been uneventful – both in terms of zombie activity and in the presence of supplies. The lack of supplies isn't as much of a problem as it once had been – they're almost fully self-sufficient now, even if things will never really go back to the way they were. Not in this lifetime, at least.
Jack might only be twelve years old, but he's been through so much more than any other child his age. Not that there are really that many of them left anymore. There are a few from before the zombie apocalypse, and a few more that have been born in the months since, but it's a far cry from a healthy environment for any child. Jack's growing increasingly independent, skulking off to the library to read, or wandering around the town limits alone for hours at a time. Perhaps going along on one of the raids will help bring the boy out of his shell.
'Okay,' he says with a smile that's somewhat forced. It's been twelve years, and he's still not sure he has any clue about how to be a father. He can profile a disorganized offender, he can take down one of the walking dead with a single shot at fifty paces, but he has no idea whether he's doing the right thing when it comes to raising his son.
The fire keeps burning, an eternal flame. It hasn't gone out in a long time now. During the day it provides security – the zombies are as afraid of fire as they are of loud noises – and at night it provides warmth. More importantly than that, though, it is a beacon of hope. As long as it keeps burning, they keep fighting.
Even if it's a fight they can't win.
* * *
They wake up early – before the sun has risen. The place they plan to hit isn't too far out, and they might be able to make it back well before nightfall. In the future, the trips won't be nearly as short – after two years, they've drained all the gas stations within a hundred mile radius. Going further for fuel isn't that cost effective, which means they'll be forced to use the self-sufficiency that they've spent so long building up. They're working towards using renewable energy methods for transportation, but it's difficult, even with the limited electricity the relatively primitive turbine system gives them.
Today's trip is another step towards cementing that self-sufficiency. They've long since demolished the extraneous houses in the town, using the supplies to build and reinforce the structures that they do use. Empty buildings would just be hiding places for the undead, and really, any hope that the town might ever return to normal is a fool's hope.
It's a long time since Aaron Hotchner has dealt in fool's hope.
Before the BAU, before the FBI, before S., before the District Attorney's Office. And really, it's not just hope in a professional sense, so he goes back even further; before Jack, before Haley. It might have begun the day he started going to bed with bruises from his father's fists.
Hope is for other people. Less proactive people, maybe. People that haven't taken their lives into their own hands. But then, no-one's fate is their own. Not really. Not anymore.
And that's another reason he's agreed to take Jack along today. In this kind of world, manhood comes a lot sooner. Once upon a time, children wouldn't have undertaken target practice as part of their education.
Once upon a time, children were allowed to be children.
Hotch drives, and Morgan rides shotgun. Jack sits in the back seat with Hill and Garth. Bruty and John are behind them in the truck, because they can't really fit that much in the back of the SUV.
Jack doesn't really speak on the journey. He keeps his head pressed against the window, even though Morgan tells him that it will bring on carsickness. Hotch says nothing – he knows his son is doing exactly the same thing he's doing, albeit in a different way.
Watching the world go by.
Even if this all ended today, even if every zombie was wiped off the face of the Earth, there would still be no going back.
Only forward.
The evergreens here are a good source of softwood, and according to Reid, 80% of the world's production of timber once came from softwood. Timber that's used for, amongst other things, structural building components. It's not just physical things they're building. Not just houses, or plants, or stations. They're building so much more than that.
They're building a future.
* * *
They pull to a stop, and the moment the engines stop rumbling, they're almost shrouded in silence. Almost shrouded, Morgan thinks, because he can still hear the birds, and the insects, and the rustling of the trees, but he can't hear any mechanical noises. It's not as though they're shanty-town of a fortress has much in the way of mechanical noises anyway, but this place has a much more distinctive "nature" sound.
After two years, the world is a different place. Nature is taking back what had once been hers. Without loggers, without constant pollution, without all those other human inventions – without humans, really – the world is a very different place. That's without even putting zombies into the equation.
It almost seems a pity to chop some of these trees down. Really, though, he's pretty sure that the trees – and the birds, and the animals – are going to outlast humans. Zombies don't seem to have any inclination for animal flesh, and the virus hasn't jumped the species barrier.
Yet.
It's a sobering thought, to think that one day, zombies will be the dominant life form. Maybe they are already.
Theoretically, Morgan knows jack-all about biological theories, and evolution, and natural selection, but practically, he knows a lot about survival of the fittest. A lot more than any book can tell him. In his mind, they've been fighting too long, too hard for it to end like this. Fighting too long for it to end with the last dregs of humanity just wasting away. Because survival is about fighting through the pain. Becoming stronger. Carl Buford had led him to the FBI, and the FBI had led him here, and right now he can't see a way out of the tunnel, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. Even if they end up a hundred miles from where they're supposed to be, they'll still have the light shining down.
Metaphorically speaking.
The weight of the axe feels good in his hands. It's not a sledgehammer, and he isn't knocking down walls, but it has the same purpose. Destruction for construction. Knock down walls to build better houses. Cutting down trees to build better houses.
Twenty feet away, Hotch is helping Jack – the axe is probably just that little bit too heavy for a twelve-year-old – his first few goes are wobbly, and barely make a dent. By the middle of the day, though, his swings are a little more precise, even if Hotch is still watching out of the corner of his eye.
Garth keeps watch, sitting on the edge of a rocky outcrop, rifle slung across his knees, and a bored look on his face. The sentry vantage points are the main reason they'd chosen this site – it's a little harder to get to, but the height gives them a better vantage point to see any approaching zombies. The only downside is that taking the trees back to the truck might take a while.
Getting this done in a single day could well have been wishful thinking.
Sunset approaches, and after stripping the trunks of their branches, they've only got half a truckload, so Morgan gets the tents out of the SUV, and Hotch gets the fire going. There's a smile on Jack's face as he talks to Garth about something completely inconsequential – monster trucks, maybe, but he's not entirely sure. He's relieved by the fact that there's a smile on Hotch's face too.
John takes the first watch. Morgan's is from 3am to 7am.
The zombies come at dawn.
* * *
They move differently, which is the first indication that something's wrong. They're a little bit faster, a little bit more fluid, but still chaotic, as though they don't really know how to move the muscles properly. The second indication is the fact that one of them has three arms. The third arm is small, not really an arm, functionally speaking, but then the zombies don't really use their limbs that much anyway, save to rip someone's brain from their skull.
There are a few dozen of them, dragging themselves over the ridge. The night-time darkness had all but hidden their approach, especially considering they hadn't really expected them from this particular direction. Zombies like the flat ground; they don't deal with climbing particularly well.
It's good news in a way, because access to the vehicles hasn't been blocked off – they can make a tactical retreat if they need to.
The preferable option would be to take out the zombies and continue with the wood-cutting, because they need to make this trip last. It all depends on how the battle plays out.
Hotch sends Jack, Bruty and John back to the vehicles. Jack might have had battle experiences thanks to this God-forsaken apocalypse, but that doesn't mean he's ready for an all out firefight. If it comes down to it, the two of them will drive back alone.
It's not going to come to that.
Derek Morgan hasn't come this far just to die chopping wood.
The first zombie he takes out doesn't go down as easily as usual.
"Mutant zombie" is his first thought, but it doesn't last very long, because he's too busy killing the bastards to think too much after that. Between him and Hotch and Garth and Hill, they make short work of the creatures, even with the new developments. Afterwards, they stand around, panting for breath. Zombie-killing is not easy work.
'What the hell was that?' Morgan says eventually, his confused mirrored on the face of every single one of his companions.
'Could the virus have mutated?' asks Garth – he's a mechanic, not a scientist, but the conclusion is apparently one that they've all come to. A conclusion that can't be confirmed unless they take a body back.
On that point, there's some argument.
'What if the mutation changed the way the virus spreads?' argues Hotch. 'We can't subject the rest of the human race to possible infection.'
'By studying the mutation, we might be able to find a way to reverse the infection,' Hill responds.
'I'm pretty sure we're beyond that point now,' says Morgan with some finality. It's a truth that a lot of the town have been trying to deny for some time now. Trying to hold onto those last shreds of hope.
They reach a compromise, taking back a skin sample.
'I suppose it doesn't really matter,' Garth says, staring off into the distance. 'If it's airborne now, then we're dead already.'
Morgan doesn't respond.
* * *
They start the drive back right away – the noise could have attracted more of the mutant zombies, and not even the thought of more wood is enough to keep them there.
The drive is silent, almost painful. They've lived for so long with this new status quo, the thought of it changing once more looms over them, a dark storm cloud.
It's barely mid-morning when they make it back, and Morgan can't even find it in himself to crack a joke when Reid answers his motel room door half naked. He and Jean dress quickly, and Morgan can hear the buzz of confusion from those that are already out and about.
It's no surprise when the rest of the team show up in succession. First Garcia and Kevin, then Rossi, then Emily, and finally JJ, with a bleary-eyed Henry trailing behind her.
'Could you get me the Geiger counter?' Reid asks Jean, who searches through half a dozen drawers before finding the device.
'We're about 200 miles from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station,' Reid tells them, waving the Geiger counter over the sample they'd brought back. 'Without anyone around to make sure the system runs smoothly, the plant could have overheated.'
'So what?' asks Morgan, exasperated. 'We're talking radioactive zombies?'
'Certain amounts of radiation have been known to cause mutation in animals,' he says, by way of answer. Then, with a thoughtful look on his face, he adds. 'You know, with the right amount of people, we probably could have taken over the plant.'
Morgan privately disagrees, but then, Reid's always been ambitious in his intellectual pursuits. Running a nuclear generating station is one step short of being a mad scientist. The turbines they've set up to generate electricity are far less complicated, far less deadly.
'How would radiation affect the contagiousness of the virus?' It's the same question Hotch had asked, only this time, they have a scientist qualified to give an answer.
'I don't know,' he says eventually, launching into an explanation of ionizing radiation and gamma rays, an explanation that apparently goes over almost everybody's heads.
'We'll need to test it,' he says, when it becomes clear that his crash course in nuclear physics for dummies isn't going to stick.
That's their cue to leave, apparently. It seems a little anti-climactic.
Morgan finds himself gravitating to Emily's side. It's become something of a routine. He's not sure if he'd call it love, or even a relationship, but it brings them comfort and sometimes, that's enough.
Today, it's not about sex, though. He's tired, and quite frankly, all he wants to do is sink into bed and fall asleep. Still, he's not entirely displeased when he realizes that while sex isn't on the agenda, cuddling apparently is, even if he'd never admit to calling it that. Sometimes, holding onto someone is just as comforting as the more physical aspects. Maybe it is a relationship, even if that part is a little hard to admit as well.
'Do I have to give you the full Silkwood?' Emily asks as he strips off his shirt. He pretends to consider the idea – an idea that, once upon a time, probably would have led to shower sex. Not the best idea with limited resources, though.
'Just make sure I don't turn in my sleep,' he laughs, even though it's not a particularly funny joke. She gives him a playful swat anyway, her eyes shining, and it's the greatest thing in the world to see her smiling. For a long time now, they've been few and far between. He thinks that happiness is probably more important than any technological advancement they make. No point in sticking around if you're only going to spend your life being miserable. They've been working towards that as much as they've been working towards everything else.
He drifts off to sleep with a smile on his face.
* * *
Hotch is tired.
Tiredness is a feeling he's grown used to over the years – it had started long before zombies had come into the scene. It had started with late nights working cases and trying like hell to make his life fit together. He loves Jack, had loved Haley, and there's a part of him that still does love her, eight years on. He sees her smile, her eyes, in Jack, and in a way, he's building this future for her as much as he is for his son.
A testament to those left behind.
A testament to the world of the future.
Already, he knows that this future doesn't belong to him. He'd helped built it, but he isn't going to live long enough to bring the world into a new age.
Part of that's the tiredness. He's not as young as he used to be.
Mostly, though, it's the green tinge that's slowly starting to spread across his skin.
Though he would never care to admit it, Aaron Hotchner is afraid. Not so much for himself, but for his son, for his team, for his family.
Jack's already back at the motel room, for which he's grateful. The boy still has nightmares about his mother's death sometimes, waking up screaming about the sound of gunfire, and the sound of George Foyet's voice.
'Aaron?' He hears Rossi's voice behind him, and he's glad that it's Rossi rather than anyone else. David Rossi understands.
'Radiation does affect the way the virus spreads,' is all Hotch says, and it's enough for Rossi to realize what's going on. He doesn't say anything for a good few seconds. The implications could be far worse than they're aware of; he's not the only one that could be infected. Morgan had been there, as well as Garth, Hill, Bruty, John. Jack had been there. 'I need to know that he's going to be okay,' Hotch says, not even allowing himself to look towards the older man. He doesn't want to reveal that all-consuming fear that's filled his eyes.
His own death, he can live with. His son's, not so much. It's something he can't fight, can't stop.
He checks the chamber of his gun, and ejects the magazine, handing it to Rossi. The back-up weapon he passes over without even really thinking about it.
'Please...' he starts, and he can feel his body succumbing to the effects of the virus. His mind is slowing, and any control he might have ever had is slipping away. 'Tell him I love him.'
Rossi nods. 'I'll send JJ back,' he says quietly "To keep an eye on you" are the words that go unsaid. Hotch nods. It might be cruel, but it's far less than the horrors that might go down if it's JJ that checks on Jack. Parenthood hasn't affected JJ's objectivity in the way that some people might believe, but it's definitely affected her ability to cope with having killed a child.
He looks back down towards the gun, and considers ending it before it has the chance to get out of hand. In his experience, complete transition from human to zombie takes several hours, but the radiation has already had strange effects, so he doesn't know what to expect.
The same way Will went out, some small part of him remembers, and it feels a little inconsequential, because those had been completely different circumstances. Still, he finds himself walking out beyond the buildings, because if he does turn sooner than expected, he wants them to take him out without too much effort.
Not the death that he'd imagined.
He's come so close to death before. New York. Foyet. This time feels different. Nothing he does will change the outcome.
'Hotch?'
JJ's voice. He looks up, and there are tears in her eyes. Tears for him.
His body lurches, and he falls to his knees. No time to say goodbye – not to Jack, not to anyone.
'Do you want me to... ?' JJ starts, and for a split second, he has the urge to say yes. I can't do it myself. It only lasts that split second, though, and he shakes his head.
'You should turn around.'
The gun feels heavy as he lifts it towards his mouth. The metal's cold against his tongue, bitter. A coppery taste that makes him think he might be bleeding, only he hasn't pulled the trigger yet. His body lurches once more, as though it's trying to actively rebel against his conscious thought. His finger starts to squeeze at the trigger before it's too late.
You'll have to build a fut‒
He doesn't hear the sound of the gunshot.
* * *
Emily hears the gunshot, and it pulls her from admittedly, a fairly light sleep. She hadn't been particularly tired, but Morgan had been, and she'd missed the warmth of him beside her.
She groans, brain still trying to catch up.
Gunshot.
She jerks up quickly, because there's only one reason there would be gunshots heart in this town, and that reason is Zombies. A warning bell, of sorts.
She dresses quickly, vaguely aware of Morgan stirring from the bed. 'You sure you didn't bring back a Zombie Queen nest?' she asks, not really expecting a serious answer. It's kind of problematic, though, when she doesn't get an answer at all.
She's frozen, socks still in her hand, as she turns to face him. Dead eyes meet hers. Dead eyes, and dead skin, and all those other things that are definitive of the walking dead.
'Morgan?' Her voice is small, soft, as though she's waiting for someone to jump out and yell "April Fools!"
The reply he does give is a long, protracted moan, and he staggers towards her, arm outstretched.
'Oh, god no.' Her words are directed to no-one in particular, but she scrambles to find her gun, his gun, any gun. The search fails, partly because she's half hysterical right now, because waking up next to a zombie is not the most calming of things.
'No, no, no...' She mutters the words under her breath, like some kind of twisted mantra, and her fingers grasp onto the nearest object, which happens to be her cane. With as much force as she can muster, she swings it towards Morg‒...the creature's head, knocking it off balance.
It comes back again, and this time her swing isn't quite enough, and she finds herself falling backwards onto her ass. It takes every bit of strength she has to keep his mouth away from her flesh. His mouth. She remembers kissing that mouth. Running her tongue along the lips. She remembers that mouth touching her, caressing her.
The realization that Derek Morgan is dead almost makes her want to let go, to let the creature take her. At least then it will be over.
But no.
She hadn't gotten this far by giving up.
She spies the gun on the nightstand. The most obvious place, really – the place she puts it every night – but her mind's not really at its best. The creature pushes forward again, its arms flailing against her grip, and she kicks backwards, simultaneously lunging for the gun. Lunging and furniture doesn't work particularly well, and she feels the pain shoot up her bad leg, but she has a weapon.
Her fingers shake as she aims, squeezing the trigger. The eyes that look back are dead eyes, but they're still Derek Morgan's eyes.
She shoots twice. The first shot hits between the eyes, the second hits lower down as he can't quite bring herself to move and check that he's dead, but apparently she doesn't have to, because it's about two seconds later when the door's kicked open.
'Emily!'
Rossi's voice. She can hear it, but she still hasn't quite processed what has just happened. Her whole body is shaking, and she can't take her eyes off of him. It's another few moments before she realizes that Jack's standing there too – why is he crying? – and a few moments after that, curiosity gets the best of some other people.
Rossi shoos them off, and Jack leaves too, albeit reluctantly – there's something going on there, but now isn't the time to ask.
He kneels down beside her, saying softly, 'We need to get you checked out.'
'I'm fine,' she murmurs, which is the biggest lie she's ever told in her life.
'They weren't bitten,' he says, and even though she already knows that, the realization still hits home pretty heavy. If the virus had mutated into an airborne strain, or even one that's spread by touch, then they could all already be infected.
'We can't just leave him here.'
'We won't,' he assures her gently, and she takes the proffered arm, and he pulls her to her feet.
Outside, the atmosphere is grim, and it's a good thirty seconds before she realizes that it's not because of Morgan.
'Dave...' She doesn't use his first name all that often, but now she needs to, even if she's not quite sure why. 'Dave, what happened?'
He doesn't answer straight away, but her mind is a little more organized now, and she puts the pieces together. Jack, the gunshot, the mutated zombies.
'Hotch...'
The affirmation he gives is both grim and silent.
This new world is starting to fall apart.
* * *
The next twenty-four hours is probably the most harrowing of David Rossi's life. There are tests, and quarantines, and tests in quarantine, and one more turning – Bruty, who had been taken out by a headshot from JJ. By the end of it all, no-one else has started to show the signs of infection, and they all relax a little bit.
Of course, relaxation means that they have time to grieve, and the tears don't really stop for a few days.
All three bodies had been burnt, so there's nothing to bury, but they have a ceremony anyway, the bright, hot fire the only source of light, both physically, and emotionally.
Jack hangs around Henry and JJ for a while, but then gravitates towards Emily, who is probably taking the situation the hardest, mostly because she can't quite get past the idea that she had killed Derek Morgan.
They're looking to Rossi for leadership now, and he's not entirely sure that he can provide. He doesn't do leadership. He does the lone wolf thing, and he does the back-up thing, but he doesn't really do so well at commanding people. The Sheriff's still around, but he's just as shell-shocked as the rest of them right now. For so long, they'd managed to avoid disasters like this, and then to lose three of their best in one day.
Definitely not progress.
Rossi sighs, turning a stick in the fire.
Right now, the future is uncertain.
But then, it always has been.
Author's Note: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.